KHARTOUM: Hundreds of millions of Muslims began the first daily fast of Ramadan on Thursday, as parts of the Middle East approached crucial junctures in high-stakes peace negotiations during the holy month, traditionally a time of reconciliation
In Sudan, parties are wrangling over how the country will usher in a civilian government following 17 months of military rule. In Yemen, diplomats are pushing for a lasting truce, following the recent rapprochement between regional powerhouses Iran and Saudi Arabia which have been locked in a proxy war there for eight years.
During Ramadan, observant Muslims abstain from food and water from dawn to dusk, before gathering with family and friends for indulgent nighttime meals. According to Islam, fasting draws the faithful closer to God and reminds them of the suffering of the poor.
In Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, families prepare culinary delights weeks in advance to mark the break of the fast each evening, a meal known as iftar. For the feasts, Sudanese worshippers favor assida, a semolina-based flour dish, and a sugary fermented drink called, “sweet bitter” — both recipes that date back generations.
“Those who can’t afford don’t have to pay,” said Fatima Mohammed Hamid, who sells food items from her small home on Tuti island on the Nile River, just north of Khartoum.
In addition to fasting, charity giving is another of Islam’s five pillars. During Ramadan, mosques and charities regularly provide meals for the poor at long tables that sprawl out onto the street.
Sudan has been steeped in political chaos since a coup ousted a Western-brokered power-sharing government in October 2021. There are hopes for a transitional government before the four weeks of Ramadan end, as promised by the country’s ruling military and other political forces earlier this week. However, many prominent Sudanese factions reject the move.
Amid the uncertainty, most find common ground in complaining about the rising cost of living.
“Everything costs double what it did last year,” said Hamid.
At a meeting Egypt earlier this week, Israeli and Palestinian delegations pledged to lower tensions during the sensitive holiday season — Ramadan will coincide with the Jewish festival of Passover in April — but surging violence continues across the occupied West Bank. There are concerns about flare-ups with large numbers of Jewish and Muslim faithful expected to pour into Jerusalem’s Old City.
From the Gaza Strip to Sudan and Tunisia to Yemen, soaring prices are proving a further concern for observant Muslims. Arab countries are continuing to suffer from the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine, with many reliant on grain imports from eastern Europe.
At the once-bustling Bab Al-Fellah market in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, rising costs have left shoppers unable to splurge on Ramadan delicacies as they might have in past years.
“I have almost used up the 40 dinars (roughly $13) that my husband gave me and I bought only vegetables, a chicken and some spices,’’ said Fatima B., embarrassed to give her full name out of her financial desperation.
In Pakistan, shoppers reported similar hardships, with inflation surging to nearly 40 percent. Many said they would consider breaking the daytime fast if free food were to be handed out.
In war-torn Yemeni capital of Sanaa, prospects for Ramadan are bleaker still, with residents struggling to buy even basic supplies. The country’s ruinous civil war, now in its ninth year, has killed more than 150,000 people and pushed millions to the brink of famine.
“I am not able to provide daily food for the children,” said Saleh Al-Omrani, an unemployed resident from Sanaa. “We had Ramadan in the good old days, but today there is no longer Ramadan.”
Diplomats and leaders had expressed new hope for peace efforts in the days leading up to Ramadan, amid signs of warming relations between two of the region’s rival superpowers, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two are on opposing sides of the war in Yemen, and despite announcements of restoring ties, sporadic fighting continues across the country. Clashes in Yemen killed at least 16 people earlier this week.
In Afghanistan, people are observing their second Ramadan under Taliban rule. Since the Taliban seized power in the country in August 2021, foreign aid stopped almost overnight and the economy collapsed, driving millions into poverty and hunger.
In southern Turkiye and northwestern Syria, the destruction caused by last month’s earthquake, which killed over 52,000 people, poses perhaps the steepest challenge of all.
In the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras — near the quake’s epicenter — worshipers held the first Ramadan prayers inside a 1,000-person tent on the grounds of the city’s famed Abdulhamid Han Mosque. Turkiye’s fourth-largest mosque sustained slight damage in the temblor and has been closed to worshippers, Turkish media said.
Some 1,400 mosques have been destroyed or damaged by the quake, Turkish authorities say, leaving tens of thousands to pray in makeshift tents. More than 100 sound systems have been installed to recite the call to prayer.
In Syria’s northwestern Idlib province — the last rebel enclave — very few families still have the energy or resources to make the necessary preparations for Ramadan this year.
Abdul Qahar Zakou, a cafe owner from, said he will put up Ramadan decorations despite the prevailing misery and do his best to create a festive atmosphere.
“Despite all the odds, Ramadan will always have its own atmosphere, with a symbolism and spirituality that makes life easier,” said Zakou.
Fasting is required of all healthy adult Muslims, with exemptions for those who are sick, pregnant women and those breastfeeding.
Alongside eating and drinking, smoking and sexual intercourse are also prohibited during daylight hours in Ramadan.
Islam follows a lunar calendar, so Ramadan starts about a week and a half earlier each year. At the end of holy month, Muslims celebrate the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, when children often receive new clothes and gifts.
Ramadan starts in Mideast amid high costs, hopes for peace
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Ramadan starts in Mideast amid high costs, hopes for peace
- During Ramadan, mosques and charities regularly provide meals for the poor at long tables that sprawl out onto the street
- From the Gaza Strip to Sudan and Tunisia to Yemen, soaring prices are proving a further concern for observant Muslims
How Israeli land grabs are redrawing the map of Palestine’s Jordan Valley
- A major incursion in Tubas caused damage and displacement, but residents say a planned 22-km barrier poses bigger threat
- Israel calls the “Scarlet Thread” wall a security measure; activists say it’s a land grab severing the Jordan Valley
LONDON: Israeli raids are not new to Tubas, a Palestinian governorate in the northern West Bank’s western Jordan Valley. But fears of de-facto annexation have intensified since November, after land confiscation orders were issued for a planned barrier dubbed the “Scarlet Thread.”
On Nov. 26, Israeli security forces, backed by a helicopter that reportedly opened fire, sealed off the governorate and raided Tubas City and nearby towns, including Tammun, Aqqaba, Tayasir and Wadi Al-Fara — home to more than 58,000 people.
The operation involved drones, aircraft, bulldozers and curfews, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA.
At least 160 Palestinians were injured, OCHA said, while homes and infrastructure sustained extensive damage. The raids also displaced residents and disrupted essential services, including water supplies.
In Al-Fara refugee camp, OCHA noted, Israeli forces seized at least 10 residential buildings, forcing at least 20 families to flee, and detained and interrogated dozens of Palestinians before withdrawing.
The Palestinian Detainees’ Affairs Society said 29 young men were detained in the camp and later released, with the exception of one.
Israeli military and internal security officials described the operation as part of a broad “counterterrorism” campaign.
Locally, however, concerns have grown not only over the scale of the assault but also its timing, which coincided with new land confiscation orders in the Jordan Valley.
Ahmed Al-Asaad, the Tubas governor, said the Israeli military has issued nine land confiscation orders to carve out a 22-kilometer settlement road that would isolate large areas of the Jordan Valley and extend to within 12 kilometers of the Jordanian border.
Although the orders were signed in August, Al-Asaad told Arab News that Palestinian landowners were not notified until Nov. 21, nearly three months later, and were given insufficient time to appeal.
An Arabic-language notice obtained by Arab News via WhatsApp from Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official overseeing Jordan Valley affairs in Tubas, stated that the Israeli military ordered the confiscation of Palestinian land “for military purposes.”
Signed by Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli military in the West Bank, on Aug. 28, the order took effect “on the date of its signing” and remains in force until Dec. 31, 2027.
It instructed those “in possession of the lands” to remove all equipment and vegetation within seven days. It also said objections could be filed within seven days of the notice’s publication date through Israeli liaison offices.
Al-Asaad said landowners were given “only one week” to file objections, noting that two days fell on a weekend, while four days coincided with curfews during the first raid and two more during a second large-scale incursion.
“As a result, residents were unable to prepare land ownership documents,” he said.
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Palestinian landowners were invited on Dec. 3 to tour the land earmarked for confiscation. The seven-day appeal window, Al-Asaad said, was counted from the day of that tour.
But on Dec. 1, Israeli forces launched another large-scale operation, a day after withdrawing from the nearby Tammun. The three-day raid imposed an open-ended curfew on Tubas City and surrounding towns, according to OCHA.
During the operation, forces blocked five main roads with earth mounds, three in Tubas City and two in Aqqaba, as well as several secondary roads, severely restricting movement for about 30,000 Palestinians.
At least eight residential buildings were converted into military posts, forcibly displacing at least 11 families, OCHA said in a Dec. 4 situation update.
The land earmarked for confiscation under the “Scarlet Thread” project covers about 1,160 dunams, 85 percent of which is privately owned by residents of Tubas and Tammun, The Times of Israel reported, citing an X post by Israeli civil rights activist Dror Etkes.
Dunam is a unit of land area equal to 1,000 square meters or 0.1 hectares.
The Israeli military told the newspaper that the project was introduced based on a “clear military need” to prevent arms smuggling and “terror attacks.”
Etkes rejected that justification, saying the real aim was to “ethnically cleanse” the land between the proposed barrier and what Israel calls the Allon Road to the east, an area of about 45,000 dunams, with residents ultimately forced out.
On Dec. 1, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the army was preparing to build a new separation wall deep inside the occupied West Bank, in the heart of the Jordan Valley. The wall would stretch 22 kilometers and span 50 meters in width, cutting Palestinians off from tens of thousands of dunams of land.
According to the report, the project would require demolishing homes, agricultural buildings, wells, water lines and trees along the route.
It would also encircle the herding community of Khirbet Yarza, isolating about 70 residents who depend on several thousand sheep for their livelihood, and separate agricultural and pastoral communities from their lands, similar to what the separation barrier in the western West Bank has done.
Palestinians say the plan, if implemented, amounts to annexation of the northern West Bank.
“New notices have been issued, pursuant to the military orders, for the seizure of citizens’ lands in the areas of Tubas and Tammun, for the purpose of removing homes and agricultural projects, including greenhouses, sheds, and sheep pens,” Bisharat told Arab News.
He said authorities also ordered the removal of a 5-kilometer water pipeline.
“This decision will effectively end the Palestinian presence and agriculture on more than 22,000 dunams of cultivated land and lead to the displacement of more than 60 families,” he added.
While the Israeli military says the land is being seized for a road and barrier, Bisharat argues the true objective is annexation.
“These notices are issued under the pretext of opening a road and constructing the separation wall in Buqeia and the Jordan Valley,” he said. “But through these notices, the (Israeli) occupation is waging a war against the Palestinian presence in all residential communities, and against all farmers and agricultural projects.”
He added that Israel’s plan involves a “50-meter-wide corridor, along with a wall, gates and an earthen trench,” measures he described as “a new border demarcation” that would separate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the governorate.
“This is an annexation process,” he said. “As a result, we will be left without borders, without water, and without Palestine’s food basket, and will lose approximately 190,000 dunams of land.”
Al-Asaad echoed those warnings, saying Israel’s plans amount to de-facto annexation.
“The new settlement plan, under which the occupation forces intend to establish an apartheid separation wall, will separate the Jordan Valley from Tubas governorate and confiscate areas estimated at hundreds of thousands of dunams,” he said. “This constitutes a plan to annex the Jordan Valley.”
He warned the project would inflict severe political, economic and agricultural losses, undermine prospects for a Palestinian state and isolate Tubas from its eastern border with Jordan under 12 km of Israeli control.
By Dec. 12, around 1,000 dunams of Palestinian land have been reportedly confiscated. The UN Human Rights Office described Israel’s military road project as “another step towards the progressive fragmentation of the West Bank.”
“This is the most fertile land in the West Bank and the road is likely going to separate Palestinian communities from each other and the Palestinian farmers in Tubas from … land they own on the other side of the planned barrier,” said Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR’s office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Immediately after the seizure orders were issued, Al-Asaad said, local authorities submitted an initial objection through the Northern Jordan Valley file and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, collected powers of attorney and land deeds, and coordinated with land departments to document ownership.
“We continue to work on submitting objections through attorney Tawfiq Jabarin,” he added, reiterating that curfews and military operations severely limited their ability to complete the legal file.
Etkes, however, dismissed the objection process as meaningless, saying Israel’s judiciary would reject the appeals.
Still, Tubas residents say they will continue to resist. Al-Asaad said officials plan to internationalize the issue, urging the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to organize tours for diplomats and raise the case in international forums.
“We will mobilize local and international media to expose the danger of a plan that would seize half the governorate’s land and destroy the two-state solution,” he said.
IN NUMBERS:
• 188 Palestinians killed in occupation-related violence in the West Bank since January 2025.
• 45 Children accounted for nearly a quarter of the above-mentioned victims.
(Source: UNRWA)
Jabarin, a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist representing landowners, submitted an initial objection in late November, according to the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
He argued that Jordan already shares a secure border with the Jordan Valley and that an internal wall would not prevent arms smuggling.
He said Palestinian communities are the ones who need protection from repeated settler attacks.
The developments in Tubas come amid a broader West Bank escalation following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel from Gaza and the devastating Israeli military retaliation.
Israel has sharply restricted movement, erecting new checkpoints and sealing off communities.
Since January, Israeli forces have intensified operations, killing dozens and displacing tens of thousands. The campaign began in Jenin refugee camp on Jan. 21, dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” and expanded to Tulkarem and Nur Shams, displacing at least 32,000 people in January and February alone, according to UN figures.
Human Rights Watch said on Nov. 20 that Israel’s forced expulsions in West Bank refugee camps amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity — allegations Israel denies.
The UN says large-scale operations in Jenin and Tubas governorates affected more than 95,000 Palestinians between Nov. 25 and Dec. 1.
All of this has unfolded alongside accelerated settlement expansion and rising settler violence.
So far this year, OCHA has documented 1,680 settler attacks across more than 270 communities — an average of five per day — with the olive harvest season marked by widespread assaults on farmers, trees, and agricultural infrastructure.
In a landmark decision in July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is unlawful.
The Court also ruled that Israel must “immediately and completely cease all new settlement activities, evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers.”
UN experts in 2025 referred to this advisory opinion to criticize ongoing settlement expansions and military operations as violations of international law.
